The Amish are a religious group similar to the Mennonites who believe that electricity is evil, that's the irony.

*BUT* it isn't actually ironic. The reason why is because, lets say one day a person who is not Amish wants to convert tot eh faith. How cna they learn more? They read that website so that when they arrive in that part of Pennsylvania they are not unprepared. I(t isn't ironic, who ever made that joke never thought it through.

Amish people don't have electricity, so therefore they wouldn't be able to view the site.

It's not really ironic, since an Amish person wouldn't need to research how to be Amish in the first place.

design is where you design the web like putting background and format and stuff. on the other hand development is where you discuss with group and come up with good ideas to market your web

WordPress.com (or WordPress.org) would be the easiest route, but it might not provide you with enough flexibility to make a directory site. eDirectory.com is probably too expensive. Drupal (drupal.org) is more complex but has great functionality if you can figure it out.

I have no hesitation in recommending a free web platform called Joomla. This is widely regarded as the worlds finest open-source web building and content management system, and did I mention that it has over four thousand extensions for adding functionality to your site, the system does just about anything you could imagine a web platform would need to do. In simple terms it is amazing.

You have full control over your website so you can adjust meta-tags and all relevant variables for maximum Search Engine Optimization. There are no monthly fees except your web-host fee and domain name (usually around $10 per month). It also has a support forum which is free.

It is a little technical to get going but once it is up you can fully manage it yourself with no web developers fees to pay. There are video tutorial solutions that show you how to set it up, and with a small investment in these the rest of the system will pretty much be free, unless you really like one of the extensions which you can pay a small fee for the full version- usually around $20-$40 and almost always less than $100.

People can shy away from Joomla as it is technical to learn and the common complaints are that it takes too long to learn or is frustrating combing through the forums to get information. So it’s worth looking at professional Joomla tutorials so you can learn it in a few hours rather than a several weeks.

Once you have mastered the system you will be able to put up websites within an hour or two, so its a great investment in learning as the skills you will develop are invaluable. I've listed some of my favorite template websites, check them out as most of them have several thousand varieties of free templates you can download and use. Look for Joomla 1.5 Native with GPL license.

Also check the Extensions link on the Joomla.org site, this may already have an application for an Online Travel Directory, so you could have your entire website delivered within less than a day if you use video tutorials to set it up.

also may i recoomend bravenet.com has 25 free tools that are the best ever online !

I recommend Site Build It (SBI). I took a computer novice like myself to producing a website that ranks high with all the major search engines for a fee of only $300.00 with complete hosting, domain names, e-mail, auto respondeer, e-zines and more. With high rankings brings high traffic which = $.
People that use SBI are called SBIers and are known to have the tops 3 % rankings. They can take a novice to expert and teach through video and or written steb by step instruction on how to build your site and best of all they have a keyword brainstomer that allows you to check on your keywords and topic to make sure there is a high demand with low supply to make sure you will havde success.
It's just not about put out a website but winning over the search engines and getting free traffic. To learn more click onto my link below.

try http://stingesitebuilder.com

I agree fully with Jackman Roberts regarding SBI. I always prefer to pay once-off for software that has a solid support base and a good reputation.

Being involved in creating websites for personal use and for customers (from small businesses to large international companies) since 2001, I used many web design software packages over the years – such as FrontPage & Expression Web (Microsoft), Dreamweaver and a number of other web design products.

There are an abundance of web creation software products out there, and if you look at other review sites it is clear that most reviewers are not actually using the software they review at all. This is as clear as daylight, as some of the products they recommend is totally unsuitable for building high quality and sophisticated websites.

I am now using software that's by far the best web creation software and here's my reasons:

1 This software has a very short learning curve. It comes with extensive training manuals and reference guides to help you to build your first full fledged website in less than two hours;

2 It’s incredibly powerful: It is not only for beginners, but also for seasoned web designers. Many hundreds of former Dreamweaver and FrontPage/Expression Web users have switched to this software.

3 It has a very active online forum that allows you to learn from expert users.

4 You are always assured to get excellent support should you need it, 24/7!

5 Last but not least: It is currently very reasonably priced.

Hope this helps? I have a little bit more info on this issue on my website http://www.vitalwebtools.com which may help you.

Good luck!